Wipro Enterprises seeks to buy out shareholders reluctant to sell

Azim Premji’s Wipro Enterprises Ltd has offered to buy the remaining 1.55% of shares from 150 shareholders of the $10 billion privately held company at ₹1,654 a share, eight years after a similar attempt ran into opposition from longstanding investors.

Last week, shareholders received a communication from Wipro Enterprises on the reduction of capital under which all non-promoter shareholders are required to tender their shares at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) on 10 August.

Wipro Enterprises would spend ₹1,243.76 crore to buy back the remaining 1.55% of shares, making the company wholly owned by Premji and his philanthropic trust.

For now, Premji owns 77.65%, Azim Premji Trust owns 20.29%, and the remaining 1.55% is held by 150 individual shareholders, including some employees of the firm.

“Wipro Enterprises has issued the AGM notice to consider and approve the capital reduction, which shall be implemented subject to the necessary approvals required under law," said a spokesperson for the company. “This will provide liquidity to the public shareholders who continued even post the demerger of the non-information technology (IT) business of Wipro Ltd into the company."

Ernst & Young Merchant Banking Services did the valuation exercise, while Wipro Enterprises also took a fairness opinion report from Axis Capital Merchant.

More than a decade ago, in 2013, Wipro Ltd hived off its non-IT businesses, including Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting and Wipro Engineering, into Wipro Enterprises while the parent focuses on IT services and products.

Two years later, in 2015, Premji tried to take full ownership of Wipro Enterprises from his then 96.71% stake in the company.